Supreme Court to explain reasons
for tossing charges against mom who had sex with minor

CanadianCRC Editor:
This article contains sexist wording that would never have been used had the rapist been a man and it was sex with the 14 year old female.
We have highlighted the sexists words in red. REVERSE the genders on
this story and see how it looks. What a double standard!

35-year-old Saskatchewan woman mistakenly thought
14-year-old boy was of age to consent

CBC News, By Kathleen Harris, CBC News, Jul 06, 2017

The Supreme Court of Canada will explain Friday why it threw out
sexual assault charges against a woman who had sex with ( try sexually assaulted) the 14-year-old
friend of her son.

In May, justices ruled that Saskatchewan resident Barbara George, who
was 35 at the time of the sexual encounter, should not face a new trial
for sexual interference and sexual assault. It will present written
reasons for that decision.

The crux of the case is around age of consent, and a section of the
Criminal Code that requires an adult to take "reasonable steps" to
determine the age of a person before engaging in sex with them.

George was acquitted of the charges because the trial judge found the
sexual activity was "factually consensual" — that she honestly believed
the boy was at least 16, and there was reasonable doubt she had not
taken all reasonable steps to determine the age of "C.D.," whose full
name is protected by a publication ban.

He was attending a party at her home the night of the encounter.

According to documents filed by the appellant with the Supreme Court,
George assumed C.D. was over the age of 16 because he had facial hair, a
mature demeanour and apparent sexual experience. He also smoked and took
care of his younger siblings.

Change the gender and see how this looks: And if the above read
that "The girl had a mature body with large mature breasts and curved hips, a
mature demeanour and apparent sexual experience. He also smoked and took
care of his younger siblings. "

According to the documents, George did not realize how old he was
until several months later, when she applied to become an RCMP officer.
One of the questions on the questionnaire asked if she had ever had
sexual activity with someone under 16.

RCMP application leads to charges

After checking with her son about the age of C.D., she answered the
form in the affirmative.

That led to an RCMP investigation and subsequent charges laid against
her.

George was acquitted at trial. While the judge said she exhibited
an "appalling lack of judgment" by talking to the complainant in her
bedroom for several hours that night, there was not enough evidence to
show she deliberately broke the law.

The Saskatchewan Court of Appeal, in a majority decision, allowed the
Crown's subsequent appeal, sending the matter to the country's highest
court.

"This case involves a 35-year-old woman who was the sole parent and
adult at a high school party when she had sexual intercourse with a boy
who was half her age and young enough to be her teenage son," reads a
court document filed by the respondent, the Attorney General of
Saskatchewan.

"Despite all of that, she took no steps to ascertain the
complainant's age before she had sex with him. In fact, she did not turn
her mind to the issue of the complainant's age at all until months
later."

In 2008, the Conservative government led by Stephen Harper raised the
legal age of consent in Canada from 14 to 16, the first change to the
law since 1892.

Age of consent

The Criminal Code amendment allowed for "close in age" or "peer
group" exceptions. That means a 14- or 15-year-old can consent as long
as the partner is less than five years older, and a 12- or 13-year-old
can consent if the partner is less than two years older.

The age of consent remained 18 if the sexual activity involves
someone in a position of authority, trust or dependency, or involves
exploitation such as pornography or prostitution.

Monique St. Germain, general counsel for the Canadian Centre for the
Protection of Children, said it would be a big problem if the key
message from the courts is that if someone looks and acts 16, it's OK to
have sex with them.

'One would have thought, at the
very least, a question should have been asked in terms of age before
engaging in sexual activity.'-
Monique St. Germain, Canadian Centre for the Protection of Children.

"What that would mean is that children under 16 would be far less
protected from the very harms that Parliament intended that they be
protected from," she said.

"One would have thought, at the very least, a question should have
been asked in terms of age before engaging in sexual activity."

St. Germain said there is a lack of understanding about the social
and psychological development of children, especially boys.

"There is a societal perception that teenage boys engaging in sex
with older women is not harmful, and our agency would say that's not the
case," she said.

Justin Trottier, executive director of the Canadian Association for
Equality (CAFE), would not speculate on whether the outcome might be
different if the accused were a man and the victim a girl. But he does
believe the criminal justice system has an inherent bias against males
in some cases.

Trottier, whose group has
stirred controversy for its campaign to raise awareness
about domestic violence against men, said when a woman is accused of a
sexual offence against a boy, the assumption is that the boy got lucky,
he wanted it, he must have been sexually aggressive or that it didn't
cause him any harm.

"These are all myths. Boys can be sexually abused, and it certainly
does harm them to the same extent as it does girls who are sexually
abused," he said.

Relying on facial hair, the fact the complainant smoked or seemed
familiar with sex should not be legal grounds for assuming age of
consent, he said

VANCOUVER - Canada's largest study into the sexual exploitation of street
kids and runaways has shattered some myths about who the abusers might be
- with the most surprising finding being that many are women seeking sex
with young males.

"Some youth in each gender were exploited by women with more than three
out of four (79 per cent) sexually exploited males reporting exchanging
sex for money or goods with a female," said Elizabeth Saewyc, associate
professor of nursing at the University of British Columbia and principal
investigator for the study conducted by Vancouver's McCreary Centre Society.

Study: Child Porn Isn't Illegal In Most Countries

A review of child pornography laws in 184 countries shows that more than
half have no laws that address child pornography.

InformationWeek

April 6, 2006

At a press conference in Washington, D.C., the International Centre for Missing
and Exploited Children (ICMEC) and other participants, including Microsoft,
presented a study on Thursday revealing the woeful inadequacy of child pornography
laws around the world.

ICMEC's global policy review of child pornography laws in 184 Interpol-member
countries showed that more than half have no laws that specifically address
child pornography, and in many others the existing laws are insufficient.

"It's hard to arrest and prosecute if you don't have the legal foundation
on which to build," said Ernie Allen, ICMEC president and CEO.

The ICMEC study found that possession of child pornography isn't a crime
in 138 countries. In 122 countries, there's no law dealing with the use of computers
and the Internet as a means of child porn distribution.

"One of the greatest challenges we are confronted with is child safety, child
protection, and child rights," said Baron Daniel Cardon de Lecture, chairman
of ICMEC. Most of the countries in the world, he said, "have no meaningful system
to adequately and effectively combat sexual exploitation of children."

Only five countries--Australia, Belgium, France, South Africa, and the United
States--have laws deemed adequate by ICMEC to address the issue.
More..

PITTSBURGH (AP) — A western Pennsylvania mother has been charged with
giving her 13-year-old daughter drugs and alcohol so the woman’s
boyfriend could impregnate the girl without her knowing, police said
Thursday.

Shana Brown, 32, is no longer able to have children but wanted to
have a baby with her current boyfriend, Duane Calloway, said Uniontown
Police Detective Donald Gmitter. The pair decided to drug the girl so
Calloway, 40, could have sex with her, he added.

“There’s some sick people on this case,” Gmitter said.

Brown has been charged with endangering the welfare of a child,
turned herself in Thursday and was being held in the Fayette County
jail, police said. Brown’s attorney did not return a call for comment.

Calloway faces several counts of attempted rape. He was arrested
Wednesday and remains in jail. It was not immediately clear whether he
had an attorney.

The three attacks occurred in Brown’s home in Uniontown, about 50
miles south of Pittsburgh, according to the criminal complaint.
More..